Tehran Decree (5 page)

Christian authorities could never understand that
allegiance with Allah and his fellow Muslims was total. Islam
wasn’t just an eastern religion that could be changed or
disregarded at will, it was a whole way of life that demanded total
compliance, it was instilled into the body and brain, and as such,
was inseparable from one’s spiritual and material being. No piece
of paper and ad hoc ceremony, so persuasive in the western world,
could ever change that unless permitted by Allah.

The word Allah was the Arabic word for God and Islam
meant submission to God. Muslims prayed to Allah five times a day;
how many times did Christians pray to their God each day? Sharazi
smiled to himself, Christianity would be very lucky to glean a few
misguided religious zealots on one day each week. Clearly Islam was
on the rise, while Christianity was on the decline.

There were two main versions of Islam; the good and
righteous faith which devoted Muslin's worshiped and the extreme
version which the terrorist mobs had hijacked for their own
maligned ideologies. Both were acceptable beliefs in defence of
Allah as far as Habib Sharazi and Farid Kazeni were concerned, and
BIB represented the latter ideology.

He continued to smile knowingly when he thought of
the Islam extremists
--
they were like the Christian
soldiers of old who came to the Holy Land and murdered Muslin's by
the thousands, simply for not believing in Christ, it was they who
were the godless infidels. How things had changed
--
it was
now the Christians turn to die for not believing in Allah
--
not that many of them hadn‘t been killed, in fact, thousands had
already died at the hands of Muslim extremists, and many more would
surely follow.

After prayers in the Mosque Farid Kazeni shared a
simple meal of salad and bread rolls with his new recruit, they
dined in the open air at the back of a Victorian Mosque in a quite
corner of the garden.

‘How do you like the tomatoes Habib...not bad are
they...grown in the little green house behind our garage.’ Sharazi
smiled politely and nodded his agreement. They were good and they
did taste different, fresher than the usual super market variety,
and with a tangy tomato flavour about them. Kazeni started to look
serious and stared into the distance.

We’ve had word from abroad, the Supreme Leader has
started to make amends, he has finalised another decree,’ Sharazi
stopped eating and looked intently at his friend. Decrees which
came from abroad were nearly always a little worrying from his
point of view, he could understand killing infidels if Islam were
under direct attack, but initiating such violence without
provocation was something else. Kazeni lowered his voice.

‘I’ve no doubt it hasn’t escaped your notice but the
Americans have thousands of troops based in Iraq and are massing
more soldiers near the Iraq-Iranian border; they could be setting
up for an imminent invasion of Iran.’ Kazeni paused for effect,
carefully noting the influence his words were having on his
protégé.

‘This has already gone too far, and the Supreme
Leader has decided that should they move into Iran, the Americans
will be annihilated. The US president is behind these moves and is
the greatest infidel of them all. He must be punished by whatever
means we can muster, and the Supreme Leader has decreed that he be
abducted as soon as possible whenever he travels abroad, or in the
USA. He is to be taken alive if possible, to be tried in an Islamic
court in Iran...that is the gist of the decree.’

Sharazi blew a stream of hot air through pouted
lips.

‘That my friend is some decree; I don’t mean to
contradict the Supreme Leader, but isn’t this a bit drastic,’
Kazeni silently studied his friends features.

‘You know what these decrees are all about...they are
a struggle between the Assembly of Experts and the Supreme Leader.
The Assembly is there to examine such decrees and will undoubtedly
dismiss this one after suitable deliberation...no expert in his
right mind is going to let this decree continue.'

‘I wish I had your confidence Farid but you knew as
well as I do that the Council of Experts has never questioned any
of the Supreme Leaders decisions since its existence,' Kazeni
relented after a little thought.

‘You may be right Habib, the Iranian President has
embraced the decree, and he has the political will of the people.
No doubt in view of this, all groups have been put on world wide
alert
--
the US president will be abducted wherever and
whenever the opportunity occurs ...unless we receive alternate
considerations.’

At that moment Sharazi dipped his head, it meant he
now had doubts about what he was getting into, his natural inbuilt
beliefs were now resisting the path Kazeni had mapped out. It went
deeper than the mere dogmas of Islam or Christianity...it was a
feeling, and feelings if they were intense enough, over ruled
everything else including the intellect. Despite of all the intense
meditation and total compliance with Allah human emotions still
came to the surface and would not be quelled. It was the sort of
thing that revolutions were all about.

Kazeni touched his lips with a paper tissue, and
sipped a little filtered water then stared reflectively at
Sharazi.

‘You realise Habib...that we must now prepare, lest
we be chosen for the task the Supreme Leader has in mind,’ Sharazi,
rather than allow his mentor to see his open expressions, stood and
turned -- walked a few paces, and looked at the backdrop of city
buildings in the distance. Solemnly he turned and quietly nodded
his compliance, inwardly he knew his strong doubts had to be kept
in check for the time being -- but sooner or later, they would have
their way.

Chapter Eight

Spiral Cafe Canberra

Roger Jansen, CEO of Jansen Associates, Private
Investigators, sat at a small round table in the Spiral Cafe in
Canberra supping his café latte, and reading the latest government
anti-terrorist precautions. It was all well and good, and he
applauded the governments initiative, but it did not address the
real cause of the problem, such actions merely created a challenge
for the ardent insurrectionist. In fact most terrorist groups
tended to study government precautions as a training exercise for
budding students in terror.

It all boiled down to mental acumen and agility in
the long run
--
a study for the subconscious to work on
--
put the problem to the brain long and hard enough
--
and up popped a possible answer the next morning...if you
were lucky that is. If the brain could not solve the problem it
became lost in the void of neural existence and died a lonely
death, somewhat like sending an e-mail to a non existent
address...nothing eventuated. Perhaps he was being too much of a
smart arse, there was such a thing as too much thinking, after
which, action had to take its place.

He looked up from The Canberra Times and thanked God
he was no longer in the anti terrorist arena; good old fashioned
civilian court cases were much easier, and indeed much safer.
Dealing with the tit for tat of human cases made life simpler,
these he could understand, and most important of all, they made one
feel more human.

Although, he was aware of quite a few fatalities
within his portfolio archives, but at least, you knew where and
what you were dealing with most of the time. But the insurgent
classes were faceless nonentities, murderers, thieves, and killer
robots. A man or woman who strapped explosives to their bodies
knowing full well that they would be blown to pieces only to find
themselves in a Muslim paradise were clearly mentally ill. With
this in mind he looked out of the window at the people hurriedly
making their way to work and wondered how many of them could be
trained to carryout an explosive suicide attack. Taken to its
ultimate conclusion this corrupted way of thinking could eventually
destroy the whole of humanity -- God had clearly given us too much
leniency in our thinking abilities -- far better to be a dumb
ass.

No...he would stick to good old human domesticity it
was so much more acceptable.

The concept of domesticity caused him to look around
the cafe and reappraise the venue, since the word domesticity
always conjured up surroundings which echoed people and their most
personal proclivities.

From a purely aesthetic point of view the actual
ambiance was ghastly. The architectural prints on the wall were
ancient, and politically correct to the point of gross inhibition.
They reminded him of the past when P&O Lines ran immigrants
from the UK to Australia, and it was fashionable for men to smoke
brier pipes, and women had long flowing lace neck scarves with
large unwieldy hats festooned with frightening steel hair pins.

A better time in fact, when people actually trusted
each other to a larger degree. Secretly, he new this was why he
habitually visited the cafe, it gave him a measure of safety and
belonging, a feeling of being part of the human race once again.
Yes...domesticity was definitely one of his buzz words.

The influx of younger men often made him feel old and
out of place. There was a smattering of youthful hairstyles with
the mullet cut predominating over the close cropped convict style.
He decided that he would hang on to the thin layer of hair covering
his pate, rather than resort to the convict shaven style, so
reminiscent of the early Australian convict era. Sneakily he
squinted at the mass of faces hoping to pick out someone of his own
age or older. The man serving coffee behind the counter seemed to
be the only one who could have been any where near his own age.

He felt sorry for the man having to sweat it out in a
stuffy coffee bar all day in the worst place one could possibly be;
behind the counter pumping hot coffee for the working masses.

The odour of brewed coffee drew him back to reality,
and the human presence increased as the morning serge of thirsty
working commuters invaded the small cafe looking for their caffeine
fix. There seemed to be a point at which this conglomeration
reached its human comforting best, then it went rapidly down
hill.

That time had arrived and he carefully folded the
paper in half and put it under his arm
--
he would finish it
off in greater comfort at the office. Reading the morning papers
was an essential part of an investigators life, it highlighted and
listed the most popular court cases, and the ebb and flow of human
activity, all very essential ingredients in the private detectives
portfolio.

He smiled smugly as he thought about the government
and its politically intractable problems, and vowed never to get
embroiled with another government case...they could pull their own
nuts out of the fire from now on.

He switched the television on as he entered his main
office and changed the channel to SBS, this was another highly
interesting news source and was also compulsory viewing. He checked
himself lest he marinated his mind in skepticism. It was a habit he
had struggled against in the past, knowing full well that it tended
to colour ones thinking. He shook his head, cleared his mind, and
refocused on the TV screen.

The US President was addressing a gathering of
university students protesting about the war in Iraq. The words of
the broadcast were temporarily lost on Jansen as his investigative
mind unconsciously studied the placement of security agents around
their leading politician. It was another habit he had, of
concentrating on the detail surrounding the main focus, rather than
the subject at hand. Strangely, the surrounds often gave more clues
about the what was happening than the actual propagation of the
event itself.

It was easy to pick out each secret service agent. He
settled on a female agent clothed in a brown flecked tunic and
trousers, then switched to an older male, possible in his forties
or even fifties, which seemed a little old for such a demanding
job.

Three metres from the older man was a much younger,
clean shaven agent, with close cropped hair. He stood out more than
the others by virtue of his intent gaze and passionate rendition of
the quintessential security man
--
without doubt a product
of his ever present ego and the American way.

They all obeyed an instilled code of behaviour and
appearance setting them apart from everyone else. Non of them
looked directly at the president, but scanned the surrounding
people instead. It reminded him of a road sign with the central
post being the president, and all the signs pointing away from him.
All an external observer had to do to target the president was to
trace the line of sight back from where all the agents were looking
and they would see the big man himself neatly placed in the middle
of the scrum. Locating most of the agents was very easy since they
were all looking the opposite way to the general public, and if
that wasn’t sufficient agent identification, there were many other
clues -- all the agents were smart and well dressed, with a
tell-tale earpiece, partially hidden by the collar of their suit
jackets. A closed palm indicated a concealed miniature microphone,
which was periodically brought up to the face for communication
purposes. This collection of fine detail indicated a security agent
was at work and one would have to be blind not to notice most of
this tell tale behaviour.

This seemed to work on two levels
--
either
they intimidated the would be assassins to abandon their
intentions, or it egged them on to greater efforts. Most of the
security agents were literally standing targets. It was the latter
possibility that intrigued Jansen.

This open tendency of gung-ho political operations
showing the world what America was capable of, rather than good
covert intelligence planning, always worried Jansen. Surely the
Americans were aware of their fine upstanding secret service agents
and their obvious presence to the general public (and therefore to
their enemies as well).